Fernanda has published the second edition of the book, and it’s doubled in size! This is now a book with over 300 pages, that gives you the nitty gritty about how to put together a trailer that can help your film get successfully funded. The author is generous with her information and her knowledge is valuable.

This book has been enormously useful to us. We’re embarked on changes to our business to better serve our clients and to achieve our own personal and professional goals. Kaufman dedicated several years to read an impressive list and range of books on business and condensed his understanding into bite size chapters that are easy to read, helpful, and provide food for thought. There are also useful exercises provided throughout the book that can help you to focus, to better understand your work, your business, and to make wise decisions.

FF&F has been sitting on my shelf since it came out. I did a quick read of it when I first purchased it. Now I’ve picked it up again and can truly appreciate its relevance, and prescience. When he wrote the book, Kirsner thoroughly understood and could communicate the shifts that were taking place in the media business and what individual creators could do to ride the wave. The book was published in 2009 and, believe it or not, some of what he wrote then is already outdated now. But not much. Most of his information and suggestions continue to be valuable, to filmmakers, writers, and musicians, as well as other creative people. I would highly recommend this book for some of the nuggets of information, whether it be a platform to use for promotion or a business success story. One such nugget is the well-known story of the Helvetica film:

The 2007 documentary Helvetica told the story of one of the world’s most widely-used typefaces. On the film’s Web site, there are about a dozen different items to purchase; from the regular DVD ($20) to the Blu-ray DVD ($26) to a limited-edition, specially-designed, autographed Blu-ray DVD ($125). There is a $20 poster of the film, and several $125 limited-edition prints (most of which have sold out). There is a t-shirt and a tote bag (both $20). You can also rent or buy the movie on iTunes.

Since Kirsner wrote this, some things have changed. The film is now available via Distrify, some new items have been added to the shop and some of the prices have gone up. However, the concept remains the same–attract and engage with your fans through diversification. Kirsner’s point: give your best FFFs a way to be a part of your project, and earn a revenue stream at the same time.

For centuries, businesses have been built on the asset that give them a competitive advantage in their market: raw materials, technology, markets, knowledge. Alessandro calls this prized asset the “Key Component” because it is the key to the business and the bedrock upon which the organization is built.

Through lively examples and practical analysis, Alessandro breaks business down into its component parts showing you how you can structure, organize and manage your business by focusing on its key component.

Alessandro points out that these are the first questions he asks any client prospect:

1. What is your key component? The key component is the business’s proprietary asset that gives it a competitive advantage.
2. How big is the competitive advantage? Is your a business an innovator or a disruptor?
3. Have you or can you create a community of users? Does anyone give a hoot?
4. Can you do this profitability?

According to him, if you can’t answer these four questions your business is not viable. Sound challenging? The book can help you to answer these questions and make a viable business.

We’re proud to include this photography book by our friend Robert Harding Pittman. He has put together an exhibit and book that capture the emptiness and desert-like landscapes of homogenous housing construction around the world. These images are particularly poignant in Spain, where the speculation and construction was rampant along the coastlines, and now so many houses and structures sit empty and ugly.

“These images–many of them haunting in an arid way–remind us by contrast of how much we long for real places, real texture, real homes, real communities. In many cases they’re the face of the housing bust–but also some much deeper bust, in the way we’ve been thinking (or not) about the world.” — Bill McKibben, author Eaarth

SYNOPSIS:All across the world a uniform, homogeneous model of development, inspired by Los Angeles style urban sprawl – consisting of massive freeways, parking lots, shopping malls and large-scale masterplanned communities with golf courses – is being stamped onto the earth’s topography. With this anonymous type of development comes the destruction of the environment, and also a loss of culture and roots, as well as alienation. This globalized model of architecture does not respect or adapt itself to the natural or cultural environment onto which it is implanted. As we have seen in recent history, fervent overdevelopment has led to crises, not only financial, but also environmental and social, and some even say psychological. German-American photographer Robert Harding Pittman began working on this project called Anonymization – The global proliferation of urban sprawl in Los Angeles ten years ago. Since then he has been traveling around the world photographing the spread of »L.A. style development« in Las Vegas, Spain, France, Germany, Greece, Dubai and South Korea. The world was in the midst of a construction boom when the project began. In the meantime most cranes have come to a screeching halt.